The University of Oslo is hosting a three day conference on 12-14 September 2012 with a focus on academic disciplines and interdisciplinarity.
This focus will be examined through a number of questions: Is academia becoming interdisciplinary? Or do disciplines still condition our research and teaching in profound ways? Is disciplinarity perhaps even an inherent operative mode of modern academia? If so, how and to what extent should our institutions provide for interdisciplinarity? These are some of the themes scholars from a variety of fields will be addressing throughout the conference.
The keynote speakers include Andrew Abbott, Rudolf Stichweh, Sheila Jasanoff, and Lars Qvortrup.
The call for papers has also been issued and deadline for abstracts is 15th of March.
Contributions are expected on issues such as the historical emergence and evolution of the disciplines, the history of individual interdisciplinary fields (e.g. cultural studies, biochemistry), the fruitful and problematic interplay between disciplines and interdisciplinarity, disciplines/interdiciplinarity and academic careers, disciplines/interdisciplinarity in higher education, and so forth.
More information and an elaboration of the conference theme and focus can be found here.
The conference is co-hosted by Kultrans and the Department for Educational Research at the University of Oslo.